


Not Waving But Drowning

by Andromeda



Category: Ashes to Ashes, Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-30
Updated: 2008-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 05:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andromeda/pseuds/Andromeda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody heard him, the dead man, <br/>But still he lay moaning<br/>I was much further out than you thought, <br/>And not waving but drowning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Waving But Drowning

Sometimes Gene thinks that he's living underwater. The walls run wet and there is a rushing sound in his head. It drowns out conversations, dims sight, slows actions. He struggles to break through this, but the current is so strong, pulling him down into its seductive embrace.

Most of the time it's easy enough to go with the flow, let the tide carry him. He has to fight, he knows that really, but no-one can tell him now what he's supposed to be fighting for.

He glances at the noticeboard, towards the well-worn newspaper clipping. But all he can see is the dark, feel the cold biting rain, as he gazes down the river to the spot where the subject of the article was never found.

He lost one DI and now he's gained another. Two peas in a pod, both loopy as hell, condescending, picky, frustrating, annoying. He looks at her, but always expects to see someone else looking back. He never does. There's a difference. Sam, Sam did what he did with a smile and a frown. Picking apart every detail in order to find the answer, however surprising it turned out to be. Alex starts with the answers and browbeats the facts into fitting her theories.

It's funny, her name. Sam once told him, pissed and only semi-coherent, that he once had a tormenter. The girl in red. Alice he called her, the girl who fell down the rabbit hole. Gene finally understands. He's got his own girl in red. Alex. The girl through the looking glass, always staring down at him as if he doesn't make any sense.

It's her that doesn’t make sense of course. She talks about him as a construct. A figment of her imagination. Gene knows this isn't true, that somehow reality has become twisted, turned in on itself. Reversed. He has to fight, fight back, but he can't remember why. His control is slipping, she is taking it away. Alex is destroying his dream, tearing down the walls. And he can't stop her.

He's grasping at straws, trying to stay afloat. Trying desperately to remember why he needs to do this. But his heart isn't in it. The face that he needs to see is no longer there and without it, life is too cold and lonely to fight for.

They left in the wrong order, you see. Sam and the Missus. If Gene closes his eyes, he can see the missed opportunity, a truth dark and deep. He can feel the rain still falling on his face, worn stone of the little bridge over the river beneath his fingers. Except those fingers no longer clutch at anything, his hands reach to the thin air, flailing with nothing; nothing to hold on to, nothing to stop himself from being pulled under. He is dragged down into this nightmare masquerading as a life.

Gene knows that one day, one day soon, he'll finally catch a glimpse of that face, no longer see the deep and dark. Break above the water for the last time, taste sunlight and fresh air once more. And when that day comes he shall walk out of the building to join him, take that definitive step, pause only to acknowledge his leaving with a last flick of his hand.

Not waving, but drowning.

**Author's Note:**

> Title, inspiration and summary are from the fantastic poem Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith. Bunny comes from LJ user Addygryff, who desperately wanted to see a fic based on [Temporalgrace's Ashes to Ashes theory](http://temporalgrace.livejournal.com/24542.html). I hope I've not stepped on any toes, kids. This fic is unbeta'd, any concrit is welcome.


End file.
